Hello, everyone! Today I’m reviewing The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah, the long-awaited sequel to The Stardust Thief. I’ve been waiting for this book to be published for so long after the cliffhanger ending of book one. So, to say I was excited to pick this one up would be a huge understatement. Was it worth the wait? Read on to find out!

A merchant and a prince trapped in the crumbling realm of jinn must figure out how to save one world to return to their own in The Ashfire King, the second book in the Sandsea Trilogy.

Neither here nor there, but long ago… After fleeing a patricidal prince, legendary merchant Loulie al-Nazari and banished prince Mazen bin Malik find themselves in the realm of jinn. But instead of sanctuary, they find a world on the cusp of collapse.

The jinn cities, long sheltered beneath the Sandsea by the magic of its kings, are sinking. Amid the turmoil, political alliances are forming, and rebellion is on the rise. When Loulie assists a dissenter—one of her bodyguard’s old comrades—she puts herself in the center of a centuries-old war.

Trapped in a world that isn’t her own and wielding magic that belongs to a fallen king, Loulie must decide: Will she carry on someone else’s legacy or carve out her own?

***Thank you to Orbit Books for providing an advanced copy of the book via NetGalley. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience with a finished hardcover copy of the book, which I purchased.***

Uh. I am so disappointed that I didn’t love this book. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for The Ashfire King to be released. My reaction to it is definitely a bummer. At first, I thought the problem was my mood until I was able to become invested in other books I was reading simultaneously. I just never really wanted to pick this book up. It began to feel like a chore, which makes me so sad to say. That being said, the story managed to find its rhythm closer to the end. It was just too little too late for me.

The Ashfire King was SO SLOW and way too long. The first half of the book felt like it accomplished almost nothing. There were interesting things happening. They just didn’t seem to move things forward all that much. One of my critiques of the first book was that it waited too long to reveal things for the sake of having a bunch of reveals and twists at the end. Unfortunately, the same thing happened here. I was much more invested in the story once I knew how some of the new characters and circumstances were intertwined and related in significant ways to the events of the first book. Those revelations just came way too late.

It didn’t help that I wasn’t drawn in by the world-building. Much of The Ashfire King was spent exploring different locales in the jinn world. I expected those adventures to be exciting and breathtaking. Don’t get me wrong, there were some excellent moments. The ambiance of the setting just didn’t wow me. I expected the jinn realm to be alien after spending so long buried under the sand, but the descriptions just did not do a great job of helping me picture the strangeness of it all. I was also left wanting more information on the bindings and how they worked. It all seemed a bit hand-wavey at times with the magic just doing whatever was needed in the moment.

There were plenty of returning faces in The Ashfire King, as well as some great new characters. Mazen and Loulie kept most of the focus. I was surprised by how difficult it was for me to connect with them, though. They just jumped from one impulsive decision to another while racing around the jinn world mucking things up. lol. However, their growth by the end was good. Loulie learned to open herself up to others a little bit more, and Mazen became much surer of himself and his abilities. Surprisingly, Aisha was my favorite character. Her struggle to come to terms with her dependence on jinn magic was incredibly compelling. I also want to note that I was quite bummed that Qadir was absent for most of the story. I missed him and the found family vibes from the first book a lot.

While I didn’t love The Ashfire King as much as I wanted to, it did have plenty of great moments, including some swashbuckling naval action, and eventually moved the story forward in interesting ways. The first half was a chore, and I’d have loved to get more detailed world-building. However, the end point left things in a very great place for the final book of the trilogy. So, I’ll eventually be picking it up to see whether the author can stick the landing. With all this in mind, I rate the book 3.25 out of 5 stars.

There you have it! My thoughts on The Ashfire King by Chelsea Abdullah. Have you read this book yet? Did it live up to your expectations? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments! Happy reading!